Bed bugs are often found in the mattress and box springs or in cracks and crevices nearby.
They come out during the night to the sleeping area in order to feed. To prevent Bed bugs coming into this area you should encase your bed with a sealed mattress cover.
You can also isolate your bed as a precautionary measure although an infestation has not yet happened. In this article we will show you How to use Mattress covers for bed bugs.
Benefits of isolating your mattress from Bed bugs
- By isolating your bed, you will naturally reduce bed bug bites and reduce anxiety surrounding infestation. Proper bed isolation can indeed bring you quick relief.
- Another advantage of isolating your bed is that the bed bugs cannot reach you. This will deprive them of food and as a result they will become more susceptible to die when they enter contact with insecticide as they are weaker.
- It will also reduce the risk of spreading of the infestation in other rooms of your home. Indeed, if you change room to sleep, they will ultimately follow. You will then have more than one infested room.
Don’t throw your mattress away if infested with Bed bugs
No, on top of being expensive it is in most cases unnecessary to throw away your mattress. As there is a chance of reinfestation if they do not live in the mattress. (They can live for instance in the box springs or anywhere close to your bed).
If you are having a specific mattress like an Air mattress, you do not need to throw it as well. You can check our article about Air Mattress and Bed bugs if you want to know more about this topic.
How to use Bed Bugs Mattress Covers?
In this section we will see how to isolate your bed from bed bugs using a mattress Cover.
Make the bed an island
As we said, bed bugs crawl to your bed at night (if they do not already reside in your mattress). They get onto beds for instance by moving from bed sheets or Mattress Encasements, that are touching the floor, or by the wall that connects to one of the bed frames for instance.
They use “bridges” that connect the floor or wall or furniture to the bed.
The bed should be an island, where nothing can connect to it. Only contact to the floor should be the bed’s legs. For that, you can for instance pull the bed several inches away from any wall and pay attention to drapes from the bed touching the floor.
Placing Interceptor cups beneath each leg of the bed
The bed leg is one of the most common roads taken by the bed bugs to reach their host by climbing.
You should as a result put in place bed bug interceptor cups beneath each foot of the bed to catch the bugs before they climb the bed legs.
Choose your Mattress Covers
Most Mattress Covers will not work against bed bugs. Choose a specialized mattress protector which covers the whole mattress and preferably box spring as well.
Some Covers proclaimed to be “bed bug proof” do not prevent them from going through.
Indeed, your mattress Cover should have those features:
- Mattress Encasement is made of material which must be Bed bugs bite-proof.
- There should be no opening or tears in the Mattress Cover which would allow them to escape.
- Zipper should be made so tight so that they cannot escape through it (small teeth close together and sealed completely at the end)
Encase your mattress
- Put both the box spring and the mattress inside the Mattress Cover, it should cover the entire bedding. (Both mattress and box spring)
- Then seal it with the zipper. Now they should not be able to escape the Encasement.
- Keep it sealed for at least a year to ensure that all the bed bugs are dead from hunger (Remember they can survive months without blood)
- You should launder Sheets and pillowcases often.
- You should examine the Mattress Cover regularly to ensure there are no holes where they could escape through
You know now How to use Mattress covers for bed bugs. The following step is to pick the right Mattress Cover for sale, which can be laborious due to the large offer of Encasements available. This is why we created an in-depth Bed bugs Mattress Covers Buying Guide, which will highlight the best mattress covers for bed bugs on the market.